South Dakota: White voters v. Native residents
South Dakota: White voters v. Native residents
Ongoing lawsuits illustrate the continued disenfranchisement of Native Americans.
Welcome back everyone. We’re continuing our focus on Native Americans and traveling to South Dakota.
Topline Takeaways
Donald Trump handily won South Dakota as the population is heavily White and mostly rural.
Joe Biden made inroads in the state’s cities and performed most strongly among the state’s Native American population.
Counties with majority Native American populations saw significantly lower turnout than White-majority counties, a signal of ongoing voter disenfranchisement.
In-Depth Insights
South Dakota is divided into halves by the Missouri River, running from north to south through the center of the state. The soil east of the river is more arable than the soil to the west and as a result “East River” South Dakota is known for its agriculture. “West River” South Dakota is known instead for its ranching and large deposits of minerals like gold, iron and coal. The majority of the state’s population lives in “East River” whereas most of the state’s Native American population and reservations lie in “West River.”
Donald Trump’s base of support primarily lies in “East River” where the state’s population is predominately White. The national Democratic party’s recent lean into urban issues aligns the state more firmly with Republican interests as its largely rural and agrarian. The state also has high rates of gun ownership, further pushing voters toward Republicans.
Joe Biden’s base of support in South Dakota sits firmly within the state’s Native American population. Every county won by Biden (except Clay county) holds a majority Native American population. What’s worrisome (not simply for Democratic prospects but from a civil rights perspective) is that collectively these counties have a rate of turnout almost 20-points below the statewide average. This is largely due to a longstanding history of disenfranchisement of Native American voters that continues to this day.
Despite the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924 which gave all Native Americans the right to vote, South Dakota did not start complying with the law until the 1940s (with some individual counties continuing to deny Native Americans the ability to vote or serve in an elected office until the 1980s.) More recently, the state held illegally gerrymandered state House districts in the early 2000s, where they packed two different reservations into a single district that was over 90% Native American. After voters partnered with the ACLU and sued the state, a judge ruled that the “current legislative plan impermissibly dilutes the Indian vote" and that it denied Native Americans "an equal opportunity to access the political process.”
Several Native American voters have sued the state again earlier this year, alleging that the South Dakota is not cooperating with the federal “Motor Voter” law that requires states to provide voter registration resources via public assistance agencies.
“Between the 2004 and 2016 elections, South Dakota saw an 84 percent decrease in the number of voter registration applications from public assistance agencies, despite an 80 percent increase in people receiving benefits from those agencies.” -Evidence filed by plaintiffs
This lawsuit is ongoing and is being bolstered accounts of individual voters submitting valid registration documents and still being denied the right to vote.
“I was denied the opportunity to cast a vote in the 2020 presidential election because the state didn’t process my voter registration. We cannot allow voter suppression to continue in South Dakota or anywhere in Native America.”
Forecasting the Future: The persistent disenfranchisement of Native American voters is a civil rights issue and its effects are what help Republicans maintain a stronghold within state government. The state has the third largest proportion of Native American voters in the United States and Indigenous peoples have been identified as one of the fastest growing segments of South Dakota’s population. Yet the counties that hold most of this population routinely have voter turnout rates that are significantly lower than the rest of the state. So while the Democratic coalition is growing in size, it’s not translating to votes or a shift in the balance of power.
In the current lawsuit against the state, Standing Rock Sioux tribal member Hoksila White Mountain argues that his campaign for mayor of the city of McLaughlin was hampered by the state. The petition for his candidacy was rejected because many of the signatories were not registered to vote and the candidate alleges that this was because the state never offered the legally mandated voter registration resources within the county.